This invention relates to a golf distance tracking, club selection, and player performance statistics device.
In the sport of golf, skillful playing is enhanced by the ability to judge the distance to the flag pole, as well as to sand traps, water, or other hazards, from the current position of the ball as one approaches the green. Knowing this distance enables the player to choose the appropriate club. Frequently, because the golfer has only an inaccurate knowledge of the distance and is uninformed about his own past performance in a similar circumstance, the golfer will over-club or under-club the shot.
Often, golfers on the fairway end up applying "body english" during the stroke in a deliberate effort to modify the distance traveled by the ball. This is called "pressing" and is generally motivated by the desire to apply experience learned in other sports to the problem of fairway ranging in golf, and it usually produces detrimental results. In contrast with other sports, proper club selection rather than the amount of force applied plays an important role in proper ranging on the golf course. In other words, a properly taught golfer swings consistently and uniformly, varying the distance by proper club selection only.
Both manual and automatic devices for assisting a player's performance on a golf course have been known for quite some time. These generally include range-finder type devices which are capable of measuring, with varying degrees of accuracy, the distance to a given object, such as a flag pole. Examples of such devices are disclosed in Kitay U.S. Pat. No. D247,452; Hudak U.S. Pat. No. 3,907,288; and, Brucker U.S. Pat. No. 3,824,698. All of these devices require that the flag pole be visible to the golfer from the current position of the ball in order to be effective. That is, these devices are not effective if the flag pole is not visible.
Many other prior art devices require the flag pole to act as a target of or receiver for transmissions. That is, the flag pole is relied upon to return a signal pulse for prior art distance sensing devices that use sonar, laser, ultrasonic, or radio transmissions such as described in Czajkowski U.S. Pat. No. 4,464,738; Shipp, et al., U.S. Pat. No. D268,910; Lipschutz U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,378; and, Terry U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,717.
Still other prior art devices require the golfer to consult maps and to make "on the spot" distance calculations such as described in Tattershal U.S. Pat. No. 4,783,071 and May U.S. Pat. No. 4,419,655.
The prior art includes other expensive and complex devices such as devices that are installed on golf carts which provide target and hazard distance information updated every ten yards by using sensors installed below the fairway turf. Further, various pocket-sized electronic devices are available on the market which are capable of recording, manipulating, and displaying golfer performance information. Nonetheless, these devices do not provide any distance tracking capability.
A drawback to the golf distance tracking devices known in the art is that none of the prior art devices provide, in an integrated way, all of the following functions, namely: accurate, continuous tracking of the player's position on the fairway and, thus, of the player-to-pin or player-to-hazard distance; complete, long-term recording of individual player performance; and an optimal club selection based on up-to-date measured distance and performance data. Thus, there is a need in the art for providing a single device that performs these functions. It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide a golf distance tracking device wherein the flag pole does not need to be visible, neither does the flag pole need to be equipped with special sensors or other instruments to enable the distance measuring device to operate, and the distance tracking device does not use any electromagnetic or acoustical energy source in order to measure distance from target objects, thus avoiding the need for costly certification of compliance with regulations concerning energy-emitting devices.